Draft GOP platform embraces Ryan Medicare ideas

TAMPA, Fla. — The Republican platform committee will take up Medicare language Tuesday afternoon that would officially commit the party to the kind of overhaul championed by Paul Ryan, including turning it into a voucher-like program and raising the retirement age.

The platform language isn’t a total surprise, since Ryan is now on the ticket and Mitt Romney has endorsed the general approach of his plan. But it gives the Republican Party one more level of commitment to the controversial idea of turning Medicare into a premium-support program, in which seniors would get subsidies to buy private health insurance.

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And while Romney’s Medicare plan doesn’t call for raising the retirement age, Ryan’s most recent budget, as passed by the House, would gradually start to increase the retirement age starting in 2023 to match Social Security’s retirement age.

POLITICO reviewed a draft of the platform, which will not officially be published until next week. Here is the text of the Medicare language:

“The first step is to move the two programs away from their current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model. This is the only way to limit costs and restore consumer choice for patients and introduce competition; for in health care, as in any other sector of the economy, genuine competition is the best guarantee of better care at lower cost. It is also the best guard against the fraud and abuse that have plagued Medicare in its isolation from free market forces, which in turn costs the taxpayers billions of dollars every year. While retaining the option of traditional Medicare in competition with private plans, we call for a transition to a premium-support model for Medicare, with an income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee’s choice. This model will include private health insurance plans that provide catastrophic protection, to ensure the continuation of doctor-patient relationships. Without disadvantaging retirees or those nearing retirement, the age of eligibility for Medicare must be made more realistic in terms of today’s longer life span.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 3:13 p.m. on August 21, 2012.